NEUTRALS & OTHERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 May 1943, Page 3

NEUTRALS & OTHERS

IMPRESSED BY AFRICAN VICTORY PUPPETS REALISE - THEIR DOOM SPECULATION REGARDING ALLIED NEXT MOVE. OPINIONS IN RUSSIA AND AMERICA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, May 10. The fall of Tunis and Bizerta is having a tremendous effect in Turkey, the Balkans and the rest of the Near and Middle East, as well as all Europe. The Turks have been very much impressed by the result, which is considered to be the conclusion of the African campaign. The puppet Governments which Germany established throughout the Balkans are reading the signs on the wall and realise that they are doomed. The Berlin radio says that Allied troop movements to Cyprus and also concentrations in Palestine suggest that j preparations are being made for a campaign against South-East Europe. ■ Moscow newspapers believe that the brilliant success in Tunisia will shock the German morale and open a new phase in the war by establishing a second front in Europe. Moscow radio said: “Tunis and Bizerta will be bases for the coming offensive against Europe. Their capture has freed the Mediterranean for Allied shipping, thereby reducing the amount of shipping required for future operations.” From Tangier it is reported that Generalissimo Franco has gone to Melilla, Spanish Morocco, for the first time since thb civil war. His object, it is believed, is to inspect the Spanish fortifications on the French Moroccan border, and also to make contact with General Eisenhower and General Mark Clark.

Speculation regarding where the Allies will strike next has replaced the jubilant announcements in the Press of the Allied victory in Tunisia. In the United States the Press is agreed that an assault on the Continent will come soon. Most observers believe the Allies will launch several blows simultaneously, masking the real one till the Axis forces are thinly strung out. The “New York Times” Washington correspondent says informed circles assume that decisions about the Allied landings in Europe have already been taken, but \vhere and when are carefully guarded secrets. However, Italy and the Balkans are regarded as the most logical places. The possibility of a desperate German surprise attack against the Allies via Spain or the Balkans is not overlooked, but so far there has been no signs reported of any attempted operations in these directions.

Mr Joseph C. Harsch, writing in the “Christian Science Monitor," says the Allied victory in Tunisia is packed with meaning for the future. The result has shown new power and new momentum in the Allied cause, which has taken a most significant step forward.

SLAV CONFERENCE REPORT ON YUGOSLAV RESISTANCE. ARMY OF LIBERATION GROWING IN NUMBERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ■ RUGBY, May 9. Speaking at a congress of members of the Slav nations which is being held in Moscow, a representative of Yugoslavia, reported by the Moscow wireless, said that the People’s Army of liberation in Yugoslavia was steadily increasing in numbers, and all attempts by the enemy to annihilate it had failed'. During the fourth German attempt in two months of fighting the enemy had lost 22,000 officers and men. The Bulgarian representative declared that the Bulgarians were starving because the Germans were taking away all foodstuffs. As a result of the decline in German manpower, he said, the Germans wanted to force Bulgarians to fight against the Soviet, but the Bulgarians would not do so. A commander of a Soviet partisan formation operating in White Russia declared that the partisans there had wiped out several tens of thousands of Germans and had killed 13 enemy generals. blown up more than 900 bridges, destroyed on aerodromes 305 planes, and destroyed or captured 250 tanks.